GPS World

Tag: SkyTraq

  • SkyTraq Seeks Crowdfunding for Location-Sensing Development Board

    SkyTraq Seeks Crowdfunding for Location-Sensing Development Board

    NavsparkSkyTraq Technology, Inc., a fabless GNSS positioning technology company, is undertaking a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to explore if there is sufficient interest in applying GPS/GNSS processor technology beyond traditional ways by offering NavSpark, a small, powerful, thumb-sized, 32-bit, microcontroller development board with GPS/GNSS receiver as onboard peripheral. With price approaching an 8-bit microcontroller development board, the GPS/GNSS receiver is effectively provided to users free of charge. They are seeking $27,000 in funding until February 6, 2014.

    NavSpark features:

    • 100MHz 32bit RISC Processor with 16Kbyte I-Cache and 2Kbyte D-Cache

    • IEEE-754 Compliant Floating Point Unit

    • 1MByte Flash Memory

    • 212Kbyte SRAM

    • GPS Receiver

    • UART x 2

    • SPI x 2

    • I2C x 1

    • 17 Digital I/O (shared with above functional pins)

    • 1 Pulse Per Sec Timing Reference with +/-10nsec Accuracy

    • Customized Arduino IDE with GPS SDK Seamlessly Integrated

    NavSpark-BD model has a GPS/Beidou receiver onboard, enabling users to use the latest GPS/Beidou navigation technology just as large smartphone makers are beginning to adopt this new technology. The NavSpark-GL model has GPS/GLONASS receiver onboard, enabling users to use dual-satellite navigation technology, GPS/GLONASS as used in high-end smartphones, in their hardware projects. The NavSpark development board makes the latest global navigation satellite technology easily accessible.

    SkyTraq’s 7mm x 7mm QFN56 Venus822 quad-mode GPS/GNSS processor with extended I/O pins is used on NavSpark. Venus822 is designed to simultaneously process 34 GPS/GLONASS/Beidou/Galileo/QZSS/SBAS signals in parallel, thus having much higher computation power and larger memory than conventional 8-bit or 32-bit microcontrollers. Without using GPS/GNSS function, all the 100 MIPS RISC/FPU processing power and 1 MB Flash + 212 Kb RAM memory capacity is available for user application. When just using GPS-only mode or GPS/GLONASS, GPS/Beidou dual-satellite navigation mode, the remaining MIPS and memory still far exceeds what’s available on similar small, low-cost development boards on the market.

    With average price of different model variants plus active antenna in range of $15 ~ $20, NavSpark’s goal is to provide the makers an alternative powerful, small development board with location-sensing capability, and at the same time making latest GPS/Beidou or GPS/GLONASS dual-satellite navigation technology as easily accessible as GPS to the users worldwide.

    NavSpark is low cost enough to leave in small hardware projects. For higher volume projects such as asset tracker, GPS fitness product, sports performance logger, toy quad-copter autopilot, etc., after rapid prototyping using NavSpark, volume usage can later change to 10mm x 10mm x 1.3mm Venus838FLPx module, a miniaturized LGA version of NavSpark. For applications benefiting from NavSpark’s high processing power and large memory without using GPS/GNSS, volume usage can later change to Venus822 chip to lower cost.

    For further information on NavSpark, visit http://bit.ly/1dBpits.

  • SkyTraq Introduces Venus816, Dual-Antenna Supporting GPS Receiver

    The Venus816 on a penny.
    The Venus816 on a penny.

    SkyTraq Technology Inc., a fabless GNSS positioning technology company, today introduced highly integrated Venus816 single-chip GPS receiver capable of supporting dual passive antenna and active antenna inputs, automatic switching from passive antenna to active antenna, and active antenna short circuit protection without needing extra external components. It offers low BOM cost for antenna-embedded GPS products needing external active antenna option.

    The Venus816 includes two RF inputs with integrated antenna switching and external active-antenna current detection. A high-linearity on-chip 20dB gain 0.9dB noise figure LNA is used with one of the inputs, offering cascaded system noise figure of 1.2dB, allowing Venus816 to be used with passive antenna without the need for additional external LNA device.

    The Venus816 works with GPS, QZSS, and SBAS signals, features industry leading 40Hz update rate, 29sec cold start TTFF, -148dBm cold start sensitivity, -165dBm tracking sensitivity, multipath suppression, jamming mitigation and reporting.

    It is comes in 5mm x 5mm QFN40 package. A minimum of 6 external components is needed to form a working GPS receiver.

    Venus816 engineering sample, evaluation kit, datasheet and reference design are available in late of October; mass production begins in November.

  • SkyTraq Introduces Consumer GPS/GNSS Receiver

    The S1216F8 receiver by SkyTraq Technology.
    The S1216F8 receiver by SkyTraq Technology.

    SkyTraq Technology, Inc., a fabless GNSS positioning technology company, has introduced its fast consumer-grade 50-Hz update rate S1216F8 GPS receiver module. The module supports GPS, QZSS, WAAS, EGNOS, MSAS, and GAGAN satellite signal reception. The S1216F8 receiver is based on SkyTraq’s newest 55-nm Venus 8 GPS/GNSS chipset.

    The Venus 8 is a low-cost commercial GPS/GNSS chipset incorporating an IEEE-754 compliant FPU. With RISC/FPU running at 100 MHz, the S1216F8 GPS receiver module has industry leading 50-Hz update rate, very fast and accurate position/speed response, suitable for UAV, RC plane flight logging, and high-performance race car or speed boat data logging applications. When running at lower 1 Hz, 5 Hz, or 10 Hz update rate, the S1216F8 receiver can be used as a typical GPS receiver module currently available on the market.

    The S1216F8 GPS receiver module measures 12mm x 16mm and consumes 26mA @ 3.3V during continuous navigation at 50-Hz update rate.

    The S1216F8 is among SkyTraq’s S1216 family of form factor compatible, high-performance, low-cost GNSS modules. The S1216F8-GL GLONASS/GPS module and S1216F8-BD Beidou/GPS module both have a 20-Hz update rate.

    The S1216 family of 50-Hz GPS, 20-Hz GLONASS/GPS, and 20-Hz Beidou/GPS receiver modules are in production. Datasheet, engineering sample, evaluation kit and reference design are available.